I was her lover, her son, her wife and brother. The Corinthian columns were falling. The ruins of Athens and Minos were eroded by the long wind. Roofs and walls crumbled into the sea. The fortresses of reason were besieged. Mercury cried out, face burning, body contorting, writhing as he was pulled into the sun’s gravity and there consumed. Io is drowned. Europa’s hacked into rotting fragments. The Gods are withering, fading; some scream in their death throes; and Theseus grins with contemptuous bloodlust, believing he alone dismisses them. Theseus, the slayer of monsters, betrayer of women.
I am drugged on this. If it is only dreaming, it remains more intense and pleasurable than any reality. I would dream for ever rather than return to that world of injustice and disease I’ve left. I become he/she and Libussa is she/he. We are one sex, one creature. We have found the path to true, mutual harmony.
If the Grail were indeed Harmony, I thought, then I had found it, after all, in this tavern at the centre of the world, where all dimensions of the multiverse (as Libussa called it) intersected, in the city called Amalorm, timeless city of the pit. Amalorm was all cities and all cities were the sum of mankind’s ambition, its wisdom and its failings. Amalorm, whispered Libussa, could never be destroyed, even if her very foundations turned to dust. Amalorm could not die. And soon, when the Concordance is here, we shall become immortal, also. We shall be immortal, you and I, von Bek. And we shall be one for ever.
I screamed, somewhere beyond Time, as her lips and fingers touched the instrument of my body. I was burning. I was Mercury. I was Io. I was Zeus himself, dying in flames upon Mount Olympus, yet laughing at the foolishness of those who had allowed him to rule them for so long. She anointed my body. Oh, Lucifer, she anointed my body with creams and oils which bore the scents of all that was beautiful. We were a million shadows, multicoloured, faceted, of a million living men and women, plunging through the multiverse, through the richness, the densely populated spaces, the timeless places that were all times, the infinity which was the multiverse. She anointed my body with creams and oils. She anointed her own. And we flew as the witches and the warlocks of our Gothick past flew. We flew at night under the Autumn Stars and were laughing at the world. Oh, Libussa, crucible of ancient, fiery blood, inheritor of a thousand martyrdoms, pray we shall not be martyred again. In our divine frenzy we flew. Shall Daphnis be born again?
Here was Achilles brought before Lycomedes; Simplicissimus delivered of all affliction. Oh, I thought, let her prophecy be a true one so we shall see an end to lances, muskets, flags and drums, an end to the ruin which lets flow so much blood. And the blood turns to poison spreading over the whole map, destroying the roots of the Tree. Let the Tree be saved! Torquemada, enemy of flight, wrote it down in his Hexameron. Let them call it what they like. Let them say it was the Witch’s Gallop and speak of hellish vengeance, but I knew it was no sin. We would be purified and become one. It was there in the parchments and the vellums of certain libraries; always there, waiting to be understood. But understanding came only through experience. We were flying beyond the world. And the furious beast with blazing eyes and red fangs beat his club upon the Earth in a madness of frustration. Hermaphrodite steals the power, then scatters it to the winds of limbo. None shall have it! All shall have it. Within us, she is our salvation. We are whole.
Yet beating through this triumphant wonderment of molten brass and fiery gold, of mercurial silver, was the dark temptation, the greedy Beast which lurked still in the Labyrinth, which threatened when it was confident, which scuttled and hid when challenged (so that once we thought him banished for ever) and which could destroy all we valued when we least expected it. I tried to speak of the Beast to Libussa, but she would not hear me. We must be careful, I said. We must not succumb. She laughed. Von Bek, we shall be invulnerable, inviolable, omniscient! I said: But not omnipotent.
Oh, yes, she said, omnipotent, too…
I told her I did not want such power. She was amused and stroked my head with her tender fingers. We were dreaming together. We were the same thing. We explored eternity without urgency. This was the time of our flying, glistening naked; burning like the sun; across the dark, musty heavens where the old stars gathered to die. After Daedalus helped Theseus, the engineer was imprisoned in the very Labyrinth he had built to contain the Minotaur. With his son Icarus he escaped on wings of his own invention, reaching Sicily, though Icarus perished. Pursuing Daedalus to Sicily, Minos was slain by the daughters of Cocalus. It did not matter how close to the stars we flew, but I wished she would not speak of the future, for it made me fearful. We were gliding towards a gigantic tower. It was white, a tower carved from a single, massive femur. The Bone Tower, she said. We slipped through one of the windows, like a fracture in the paleness, and here were all the kings and queens, emperors and empresses, even some gods and goddesses, who had inhabited Earth’s history, all gathered in one place. It was a Ball, held upon a vast, irregular, circular floor. They danced stiffly, constricted by their responsibility and their desire to will their dreams upon the world. The music was distant, hollow; perhaps it was the Bone Tower itself which provided the sound. They danced. I would not join them. Libussa separated from me and drifted down towards the floor. I cried out for her to return to me. I would not go down to that terrible minuet.
Was I drugged? I was in a fever of lust and monstrous images, all mingled. Libussa/Lucius, Duke/Duchess, last of a line of tormented sorcerers tracing its ancestry to Ariadne. I peered at her heavy beauty. Ariadne, or perhaps the Minotaur? Did Theseus slay from jealousy? Was there an incestuous union between Minos’s son and daughter? There remained, in spite of my obsession, the sense that she was somehow flawed, as Lucifer Himself claimed to be flawed. I heard the Beast roaring. The thump of his club echoed in the Labyrinth. Those dark corridors were unknown to me. I had neither chart nor compass. I had only the Sword of Paracelsus which for so many years had protected the Father of modern science from cuckolded husbands and cheated innkeepers. Perhaps the flaw was in us all? Without it we should be angels of the first rank, or God.
She danced alone in the Bone Tower, amongst the dignified prancing of all those powerful monarchs, weaving her way amongst them, smiling up at me. She beckoned. I was foolish if I refused to follow her. Or, she seemed to say, did I lack courage, loyalty, generosity? She had brought me to life, given me more than the world. She was my Pygmalion. Where was my gratitude?
I wished to please her, to join the dance, but I could not. I reached out my hand to her and reluctantly she returned. We were one creature again. We flew away from the Bone Tower. We flew over Mirenburg and were tempted by the luring cries from below. We descended. There, in a brightly lit brothel, dead harlots beckoned. Dead harlots whispered of necrophiliac delights and again she paused, her curiosity stronger than her outrage. We entered that Versailles of brothels. The harlots were gaming. They stood about a great wheel, marked with numbers, red and black, and within that wheel was a wretched human creature, flung like a puppet from one numbered section to the next until at last the wheel stopped. If the person on the wheel remained alive, they could claim whatever prize had been set upon their number, or could elect to take another turn, risking death against the prospect of a greater reward. The harlots described the enormity of the potential winnings. Their bones peeped through rags of flesh. They pressed us to join the game. They pushed us towards the wheel. Again Libussa would readily have taken the chance but I was the one to pull back. She would see what degradation there was in the experience, but she could not go without me. She was contemptuous of me in my refusal to take the risk. I lacked ambition, she said. It was enough, I said, that I flew. So we returned to the centre of Time and Space, to tranquillity and ecstasy at The Friend Indeed.
In the morning I found my breeches and shirt freshly washed and ironed by O’Dowd’s own laundress. The Sword of Paracelsus throbbed in the cupboard where I had placed it. Libussa did not touch it. Evidently she had already felt the shock from the blade. She crouch
ed in front of the opened cupboard, staring at the eagle as it flew round and round, glaring at us and voicing his silent shriek, so full of insane rage he would kill whatever came within reach of his poised claws. ‘Whoever it was gave you this,’ she said, ‘and perhaps it was Lucifer as you say, not only trusted you to fulfil your destiny, but was also a true friend to us. All we require now is the Cup. Miroslav’s tincture is prepared. The Concordance is a matter of hours away.’
‘You’ve heard, then, from Prince Miroslav, Madam?’
She pretended vagueness. ‘Did I say aught of it?’
‘How have you seen him? I thought he refused to enter the Lesser City, let alone the Deeper.’
She frowned. Her expression suggested she thought me stupid and coarse, or maybe my own self-doubt supplied the interpretation. ‘We must breakfast,’ she said. As she strode for the door of our room I attempted to stop her (perhaps because I was unwilling to end the spell of the previous night). ‘Madam, you’ll go mad if you do not relent in this matter!’
‘We must have the Grail,’ she said. ‘Do you really think O’Dowd maintains this peace by the employment of a handful of pickaroons? The Grail makes its own harmony. Now, use your nose. Sniff it out. You must try!’
‘Madam, I repeat to you – I’m not bred as a Grailhound, and I suppose I lack your terrier’s instinct. I desire no more than to be what we become when we’re together. ’Tis more than any human creature could fairly expect!’
She glared at me. ‘You speak of the means, not the end. The horse, Sir, is not the destination. Far more is promised.’
‘And feared by me, Madam. You know how to recognise the Beast, and you’ve shown me how to recognise Him also, but you’re reluctant, it seems, to renounce Him!’
‘Is that what you fear?’ She was honestly curious.
‘Aye, Madam.
‘You have a strange perspective on this, little von Bek.’ She paused, her hand upon the door latch. She frowned down at me, studying me. ‘The power I see is for the commonality. But much must be undertaken and something sacrificed before it can pass to us – and from us to the world at large. That is not the ambition of the Beast.’
I was reassured. ‘I apologise, Madam. Let’s to breakfast.’
I left both my swords in our room and stepped out onto the gallery. From this a stair led down to the public saloon where the Red O’Dowd’s men were already at their beef and small ale. Beyond the windows was a blackness made more intense by the cheery lights which burned within. As we stepped down, the Red O’Dowd came out of his back rooms with a plate of bread and butter. He no longer wore his apron but had on a good coat of black broadcloth, black breeches, white stockings and front-tied shoes. Were it not for his great size and flaring red beard and hair, he would have resembled a respectable parson. He said that he hoped we had slept well. He was jovial. Business, he said, was improving. He looked forward to a better season. He pointed into one of the booths. We could not see who was there.
‘A third customer!’ said O’Dowd. ‘Good luck comes in threes!’
Now we had moved so that the new visitor was visible to us. Sitting on the bench, picking with his knife at the fat of a small ham, was Klosterheim. He looked up at me. He might as well have been the Spectre of Death himself with his hollow eyes and sunken cheeks. ‘Good morning to thee, von Bek,’ said he formally.
I was too furious to contain myself. I raised my voice and my fist. ‘You killed a harmless creature, Klosterheim, when you killed the Goat Queen. I’ll not forgive you. Neither can I forget what you’ve become or whom you’ve allied yourself with. By God, Sir, you had better leave this tavern or risk my steel in your heart.’
Klosterheim shrugged. ‘As for the latter, I’m used to it. You have no right, Sir, to order me from a public ordinary.’
The Red O’Dowd loomed up behind. ‘Watch your tongue, Sir, if you please,’ he said to me. ‘There are rules to this house. The first is that O’Dowd says who stays and who leaves. The second’s that all are welcome who behave themselves here, gentlemen or ladies. The third is – anyone who starts a brawl shall be at once ejected.’ He paused, picking me up in the most insulting manner, by the back of my shirt, and turning me so that I was staring directly into his beard. ‘So do not make me eject you, Sir.’
He lowered me gently and again I was standing, on my own feet. ‘Sir, this man’s a murderer. He slew the Goat Queen.
‘The little white lady who made such a fuss? Well, if that’s true, Sir, it would not be a pleasant thing to have done at all. But we have only your word for it, Sir. And it’s the essence of Law (as I well know, having been tried by it more than once) to need material substantiation, Sir, in the way of evidence.’
‘He tore her throat out with his teeth. The blind girl saw it.’
O’Dowd pursed his lips and looked thoughtfully at me. ‘Did she indeed, Sir?’
Klosterheim uttered a terrible laugh.
Chapter Sixteen
In which house rules are broken. An infestation and a visitation. Vermin destroyed. The Red O’Dowd’s fish. Some useful attributes of a Magic Sword.
CLEARLY THE RED O’Dowd misliked Klosterheim’s expression of humour as much as I did, but the Irishman intended to maintain his principle. He glared severely at the gaunt man. ‘I welcome good customers, but I’m dreadful weary of conflict, so I’ll thank ye all to remember your breeding in my house.’
Klosterheim snapped shut his mouth and glowered, sulking. Libussa and myself, watched by O’Dowd’s men, went to occupy a booth nearer the door. The men’s expressions were mild and neutral, more from a habit of composure, I would guess, than from natural disposition. They returned their attention with apparent casualness to their beef and eel pies. We took a light meal, of bread, cheese and bones, with port and water for our drink. We ate sparingly, sensing tension. When the Red O’Dowd returned he displayed disappointment on his great face as if he were revising his expectations of increased business. He looked hard at his front door, then came towards us. ‘Are your weapons still in your room, gentlemen?’ When we nodded he continued: ‘I’m re-introducing an old rule of mine, given the situation between you three. If you’ll be so kind as to hand all weapons into the house, I promise their return when ye leave.’
Though reluctant to relinquish the Paracelsian sword, I concurred. At that moment the door opened and in came a man and woman, their heavy travelling cloaks giving the impression they had just stepped off the Dresden diligence, though we had heard neither coach nor horses outside. They made a great display of dusting themselves while the woman called in a high voice for the landlord. O’Dowd, frowning still, strode forward. ‘I’m he. Welcome to The Friend Indeed.’
I was trying for a glimpse of a face within one of those hoods, but without success. I chewed the meat from my last bone and placed it on the trencher with the others.
‘Have you rooms, my man?’ asked the woman.
‘Aye, me lady.’ He looked them up and down. ‘Do you bear weapons under them cloaks?’
The hood went back at this and the shortest figure was revealed as von Bresnvorts (certainly no lady) bringing up a carbine and levelling it at the O’Dowd.
The landlord’s men were suddenly no longer at the benches but arranged, almost in military ranks, behind the tables. Each had a pistol and we were all targets. The O’Dowd grumbled to himself. ‘I’ve grown too damned lazy. Are ye all together?’
‘I think so,’ said I, ‘given the circumstances.’ I stood up in the booth. Von Bresnvorts darted a grin of triumph.
‘You’ll run with the winning side, after all, eh, von Bek?’ said he. ‘Well, maybe our offer is no longer open to you!’ The pistol trembled in his hand, in anticipation of murderous fulfilment, I suspected, rather than fear.
‘Von Bek?’ said the O’Dowd in surprise. ‘Same as in the story?’
‘It depends, Sir, what story you mean.’ I stepped boldly up, as if I meant to search him. One of his men cried: ‘Touch him and yo
u’ll have a ball through your head, no matter who dies after!’ I lowered my hands with a shrug.
‘I’m surprised that a von Bek’s descended to mere tavern swaddling. We’ve little gold here, man.’ The Red O’Dowd sighed.
‘You’ve something far more valuable, eh, Sir?’ Klosterheim rose and began to saunter towards us. Meanwhile von Bresnvorts’ companion stripped back his hood. It was one of Montsorbier’s men. ‘And that’s what we’re here for, Sir.’
The O’Dowd seemed genuinely puzzled. ‘More valuable? And you’ll leave if ye have it?’
‘Just so.’ Von Bresnvorts motioned with his popper. ‘Thus we’ll all save the expenditure of powder and shot.’
‘Then ye’d better tell me what it is, man.’ The Irishman’s voice dropped and grew dangerous.
‘The Grail, of course!’ Klosterheim grew impatient. ‘The Holy Grail. It’s here at the Centre, where the lines converge. The maps all agree. It’s here in your tavern, Sir, as you must know! Give it over and we’ll end the matter.’
The Red O’Dowd had begun to grin; his eyes remaining wary. ‘You’re all fooled, if ye think that! Ask him –’ a thumb in my direction – ‘his family’s supposed to protect it. In turn the Grail protects them. If it’s here, von Bek brought it with him. What madness makes ye think I possess a holy relic of that magnitude? Should I risk such damnation?’
‘God has abandoned you! You risk nothing!’ Von Bresnvorts’ weak face was suddenly afraid, his eyes shifting everywhere, from Klosterheim, to O’Dowd’s men, to me and to Libussa. She stood with one foot on her bench, still in the booth, sipping port, her eyes narrowed. ‘We’ll fetch the chalice for ourselves. All you need do is tell us where it is. Will that relieve your anxiety?’
‘I have none,’ said the O’Dowd heavily. He grew slowly angry. ‘What manner of vermin are ye?’ He glanced at Klosterheim’s skeletal figure, at von Bresnvorts’ decrepit flesh, at the soldier’s unhealthy features. ‘Methodists, are ye? Baptists? Or worse? What d’ye want with the Grail?’
The City in the Autumn Stars Page 33
